THCD and the use of initials and acronyms

[Kylahullu]

I can't believe some of you are so offended by state abbreviations....

Offended? Why?
Wondering about the state of mind of the writer, yes. Why write something with no information to the reader, at least one located outside the USA. If you do not want to give that info why just not put those letters there.

[tokareva]

Offended? Why?
Wondering about the state of mind of the writer, yes. Why write something with no information to the reader, at least one located outside the USA. If you do not want to give that info why just not put those letters there.

Well, that's really what I meant comrade, I just didn't explain it very well.What I should have said is some of you are reading way more into the lack of state names than what is there. It did occur to me some may not know,but also they probably wouldn't care.I can't speak for everyone but in my case Tennessee is a really long name that I don't particularly like to write out either.I probably also left it out due to subconscious concern about being stereotyped as a country music fan, or something worse, a Dollywood fan.

[OC Richard]

TOS = Termination of Status of Nonconformity

To me TOS is a Highland Dress term , the well-known military headdress I'm wearing in my avatar.

[Dollander]

Tokareva, that sounds not unlike why I specify "South Jersey" as my location. What little truth there is to the stereotypes about my home state comes from the Northeastern portion adjacent to New York City, while I live just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. But it never occurred to me that people might not realize South Jersey is short for Southern New Jersey, until I saw a Scottish vlogger try to fill in a blank map of the US and label the Carolinas as North Jersey and South Jersey (as well as putting New Jersey on Pennsylvania, so way to annoy both Pennsylvanians AND Jerseyites ). Same goes with dropping the "New" and simply calling it Jersey...incidentally, the only "new" state for which that works. But someone on a forum I used to frequent posted a relevant article about a "Jersey man", and members started directing comments at me and other Jerseyites on the forum 'til I pointed out that the man in the article was in fact from the island for which the state is named.

And Father Bill, thank you for enlightening me. Since I recognize most of the Canadian provincial abbreviations, I guess I just assumed the reverse would be true. But then again, Canada has 13 to the US's 50+. I'd always wondered why Pennsylvania is PA instead of PE, until I learned the Canada and the US collectively made sure none of their abbreviations were the same, and it does make more sense for PE to be Prince Edward Island. So at least now you know what I mean when I say my paternal ancestry is primarily PA Dutch (and yes, I actually pronounce it "Peeyay")...except that I'd also have to explain that "Dutch" in this case is a mispronunciation of Deitsch/Deutsch, though modern PC attempts to refer to them as Pennsylvania German haven't fully caught on.

Oh, and that PC stands for politically-correct, not personal computer (sorry, couldn't help it ).

Edit: I felt like mentioning that I was able to get the gist of THCD from the ensuing discussions, even prior to looking up what it specifically stands for. Also, am I at least correct in assuming everyone knows that US stands for United States? And OC Richard, when I see TOS I think "the original series", i.e. a way of differentiating the initial versions sci-fi shows like Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica from their more recent incarnations.

[OC Richard]

So how hard could TX =Texas and TN =Tennessee be to figure out?

Not hard if you happened to know the names of all the US states.

Yes I can figure those out. But I struggle with all the "M states". (We really have too many of those for 2-letter acronyms to be obvious to everybody.)

What if Irish counties were like that and somebody said they were from DN?

Dublin? Down? Donegal? How would the average American know?

A local pipe band had to change the way their name was listed on their bass drum due to what happened when they toured Scotland. It said "Redlands CA" the CA of which was consistently interpreted as meaning "Canada" in Scotland. The average non-Southern Californian has never heard of Redlands.

I've posted before how meaningless most place-name acronyms and nicknames are to people outside a particular locality, yet people (usually Americans) use them on this international forum all the time, perhaps imagining that they have universal meaning. (Our friend there in Finland can attest otherwise.)

Many of these acronyms and nicknames are utterly puzzling to me, and I'm an American! One example is the people who use the three-letter code of their local airport to refer to the region they live in. This is completely alien to me. There are two major airports in the area and I have never heard anyone say they "live in the SNA" or "from the LAX". Ditto the area I'm originally from, I've never heard "I'm from the CRW." Yet people have posted other airport codes here, assuming they identify their home to everyone.

The one that astounds me is people who say they live "in the tri-cities area" as if it has specific meaning. It does not. There are dozens of tri-city areas all over the USA. Probably every state has at least one. California has several. Ditto "the tri-State area". There are several of those too. These terms mean absolutely nothing once you venture outside your home town or region.

What I have heard where I live, and where I used to live, is the use of the three-digit area code to identify one's home. I've seen t-shirts that say "The 304" (which covers the entire state of West Virginia) and here in Southern California "the 714" (which traditionally distinguishes Orange County from Los Angeles County).

Now I do use OC for Orange County in my screen-name! But that is fairly widely known here in the USA (and possibly in other countries that receive US television) due to the TV show called "The OC". (BTW people who actually live in Orange County didn't call it "the OC" until after the show, made by outsiders, became popular.) I do regret my screen name because non-locals often guess that O and C are initials for my first two names. Nope, my first name is Richard.

[OC Richard]

I probably also left it (Tennessee) out due to subconscious concern about being stereotyped as a country music fan, or something worse...

Believe me, being from West Virginia the stereotypes can get worse, far worse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9oYUKjXUCg

[Terry Searl]

Personally I really don't care if a province, state, county, or shire, wants to use an abbreviation in their naming. It isn't important unless the location is important to be identified, and if it is that important than it should be identified in a way that everybody would know.

What I do find annoying is how newscasters and they are mostly American, refer to Canadian cities as the name of the city and just Canada, no provincial designation IE: Ottawa Canada, Vancouver Canada, Calgary Canada, Regina Canada, etc

From what I have heard and seen in some documentary broadcasts, I understand that most Americans have very little knowledge of geography, Whether it is Continents, Countries, Provinces, Shires, or smaller area's inside countries..... and that INCLUDES their own country

I would assume though that News Journalists should know the importance of giving the proper name of the location from where their story is coming from....... when they don't do that, MY first assumption, right or wrong, is that they are either too lazy to thoroughly investigate their story, or assume the people who they are relating their story to, are too ignorant to know that the location is important......

I remember once at a dinner party in Coronado California, talking to an American Air force pilot, who had just returned from Iraq. I asked him if, when he flew back to the USA, did he fly direct to the USA from Europe. He said no, actually they landed in Canada before traveling on to America. Being a Canadian my ears perked up and I asked him where in Canada did they land. He said it was in a place called Newfoundland ........Oh I said...... He looked at me and asked, why did they call it Newfoundland?..... Didn't they know it was there?
I smiled and shook my head and said, actually Newfoundland had been "discovered" before AMERICA...... I may be wrong but aren't most, if not all, American Airforce pilots University "schooled"? ( corrected just for Friday's comment)

[Jock Scot]

Well, first, Kylahullu, are you implying that there are some people who don't live in let alone know everything there is to know about the U.S. of A? gasp!

It's an excellent point to bring up, though, and I, for one, appreciate it. I've since changed my location to read "Florida, USA" from FL. I'll go out on a limb and audaciously speak for my fellow Americans (at least here at XMarks) when I say that we use state abbreviations because we're just so used to it - nothing more and nothing less. But, there probably is a sort of hubris, too, that may come from the fact that we live in such a big country. I mean you can drive for days and days and days and never leave the county - hell, it'd take the better part of a day to drive from Key West (Florida) to Georgia.

Second, Jock, you asked for it but I'll be brief (in order of appearance):

FLS = Flexible Standard Development application (staff level review)
TOS = Termination of Status of Nonconformity
HDA = Hotel Development Agreement (special agreement with the City to gain additional hotel units from a specially designated pool of units)
FLD = Flexible Development application (public hearing level review)
DRC = Development Review Committee (City staff from various departments)
CDB = Community Development Board (the name of our LPA. Ha! Couldn't resist - Local Planning Authority; Appointed by the City Council)
CC1 = City Council; first reading
CC2 = you guessed it, City Council second reading
DVA = Development Agreement
DO = Development Order (letter of approval. Or denial)
BCP = Building Construction Permit - basically a building permit
BPRC = Building and Plans Review Committee; pre-application meeting with City Staff.
ISR = Impervious Surface Ratio (how much of a site is covered with stuff that rain hits before dirt
FAR = Floor Area Ratio (ratio of amount of GFA to the size of the site; see what I did there? I did it again! GFA = Gross Floor Area; oh! I just slay me I'm like the Captain America of acronyms - I could do this all day!)

Well alright, I did ask. In truth, I am not sure that I am much wiser with the clarifications!

I well remember taking a legal friend-----I cant for the life of me remember why----- to a meeting of farmers and on the way home he lightheartedly said, " do you know I have spent the last three hours listening to you chaps talking and I didn't understand a word of it! It was all JD 762, County 1164/74/FC, combine? 8060/70/80, 10ft/12ft/18ft/24ft tables, tractor?3000/4000/5000/7710/TW10/20. Etc., etc., and you all talked quite earnestly and seemingly quite happily in numbers and code for all that time!"

So yes we all probably talk in code and jargonese on occasion and its probably very easy to slip into that way of thinking with like thinkers, but its really not at all inclusive or helpful to those that might actually be interested enough to learn of different things, even, not very important things.

[LKM]

DRC = Development Review Committee (City staff from various departments)
CDB = Community Development Board (the name of our LPA. Ha! Couldn't resist - Local Planning Authority; Appointed by the City Council)
CC1 = City Council; first reading
CC2 = you guessed it, City Council second reading
DVA = Development Agreement

Many of these are not the meanings I know for the acronyms, and I have often find myself looking up acronyms and using the context to see what the meaning would be. Many acronyms have multiple meanings, such as DRC could also be Dominican Republic of the Congo and DVA could also be Department of Veterans Affairs.

I have used some acronyms in the context of conversations ant I hope they were clear on those posts.

[Jock Scot]

Talk about double meanings! I am at present with an American couple who are over here to fish, anyway one of their fishing reels has seized up and after half an hour of fiddling the ghillie looked up to me and said in the most natural and forthright Highland manner, " Its no good I cant fix the B---- thing, its US."

Not understanding the terminology, our visitors asked what this "US" means and before I could open my mouth, the ghillie said ,"US= no b------ good, broken, caput." As no doubt you from the USA can see the problem! Anyway a large Glass of chilled white wine all round and an explanation that the term is a long and well used term in the UK for useless , broken and has now soothed the ruffled feathers of our visitors!